Euthanasia of livestock is necessary both for livestock processing operations and for farms and other facilities where it is necessary to euthanize sick, injured or compromised animals. There has been significant effort dedicated to developing devices, methods and guidelines for the humane dispatch of livestock.
Captive bolt tools represent one category of tool for use in the euthanasia of livestock. These tools have a housing that supports a moveable bolt that is moved between a retracted and extended position using a variety of actuation mechanisms. The bolt tools are either “captive” or “non-captive”. In captive bolt tool systems, the bolts are not released from the housing, and are returned to the retracted position after each operation. In non-captive bolt tool systems, the bolt is released from the tool housing, and a bolt is reloaded into the housing after each operation.
Penetrating captive bolt tools are used for stunning animals prior to processing and generally have a long cylindrical bolt that penetrates the skull of an animal to be euthanized. Non-penetrating captive bolt devices have a bolt that does not penetrate the brain of the animal and may have a wide mushroom-shaped head on the captive bolt.
Both captive bolt tools and non-captive bolt tools typically include a safety mechanism to prevent unintended movement of the bolt from the retracted position to the extended position. The safety mechanism may be known as a “contact” safety mechanism which requires contact of the captive bolt tool with the animal to be euthanized. Upon contact with the head of the animal to be euthanized, the safety mechanism is moved from a ‘safe’ position to a ‘fire’ position which allows movement of the bolt from the retracted position to the extended position or allows the firing of the bolt. However, force is often required to move the safety mechanism from the ‘safe’ position to the ‘fire’ position. The continued contact and depression of the bolt tool against the head of the animal to be euthanized often increases stress applied to the animal during the stunning process.
Thus, there exists a need in the art to provide a bolt tool system which reduces stress on the animal to be euthanized prior to movement of the bolt from the retracted position to the extended position.